Be ready for deliberate abuse of "sudden" and derived words.
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It can not be said enough: the trainers from the Asber League love the shit out of Metronome. Hefty bills and lawsuits have never been enough of a threat to stop folks from engaging in irresponsible, absurdly amusing city destruction. Earthquakes, explosions, meteors, explosions, spouts of lava, explosions, spacial distortion, more explosions... A city that has witnessed the might of a Metronome battle is a city that has seen all.
But what if it all went down in a totally different way? What if the focus was not to finish an opponent, but rather, to put on the best display?
Sixteen contestants have gathered together to test their skills (or their luck). Under the watchful eyes of the three judges, each one either anxiously awaits their turn, or wishes they had never accepted to do this.
As the enormous cleaning staff took position in a relatively safe location, the first trainer was called out to perform.
Mawile and Link
All the lights were suddenly turned off. A small portion of the audience panicked, believing it to be a blackout, but most spectators seemed to be savvy about what was going on.
Very suddenly, a loud bang was heard, catching all viewers off guard. Following up, two pink, eye-shaped lights penetrated the steep darkness at the hall, hinting about the Pokémon beneath them. They were quickly moving downards, as if falling -- perhaps precisely falling.
As soon as the glowing forms settled, a circle of glowing embers revealed the blue, canine form of the Pokémon doing the appeal. In the middle of the circle, at one point, suddenly, a burst of psychic energy appeared, being perfectly surrounded by the stream of flames for the duration of its short existance.
By the time the lights went back on, most of the audience had doubtful looks upon their faces.
Metallica Fanboy: 4.8
Obscuring the appeal wasn't that good an idea. Besides, there didn't seem to be a theme, something connecting these moves. But, most importantly, you have missed a chance to set a spider web on fire, with is totally unforgivable.
Meowth: 7.0
Hm, not really a bad appeal I suppose, but it just sort of... glowed. Pretty, but not too impressive. Still, you did your best with quite a bad set of moves, so imma give you a 7.0.
Kratos Aurion: 6.0
This was an interesting idea; the problem with really dark appeals is that, well, the audience can't make out what's going on, and there's nothing to appreciate. Darkness is generally best suited for lengthier appeals that involve a lot more playing with lighting, and each portion of Link's appeal was over too quickly for my taste; it sort of feels like the darkness wasn't utilized to its fullest extent (granted, actually being able to see the power whip might've made it look disjointed, so disguising that was at least a good idea).
Jack_the_PumpkinKing and Morpha
The lights went dim, but not as utterly dark as they were in the last appeal. Five spotlights focused on one point at the middle of the stage. Right at that point, a Pokéball was flung, and out of it came a brown star-shaped Pokémon that laid totally motionless on the floor, its dazzling red jewel pointing to the roof.
Suddenly, the echinoderm began to move. It was spinning. It was moving very slowly, but fast enough to be noticeable. It was steadily accelerating, as well.
Soon, the spinning became very quick. Then, with one thrust upwards, an enormous tornado formed around the Staryu, concealing its presence with its deep white color, given by the blades of energy swirling within.
Morpha then showed up above the hurricane, flying as it spun. It proceeded to jet out a curtain of green goo that, upon reaching the circling winds, splattered around the contest hall, covering a very wide range. The acid-spewing creature slowly reached into the tornado, reaching the ground as it disappeared.
The appealing Pokémon then struck a pose for the crowd and produced a sound. However, it seemed as though all of them were too concerned about the stinging slime they were covered in. The cleaning crew was in for a hard time.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.0
People aren't known for paying to get sprayed with acid goop. But, otherwise, it was a nice, fluid appeal that deserves at least a six.
Meowth: 8.4
Digesting the audience probably wasn't a great idea, but apart from that the appeal was quite nice and the actions flowed pretty well.
Kratos Aurion: 6.2
...hm. Well, this was certainly interesting. Generally speaking, audiences and judges actually don't like to get involved in appeals to the extent of getting sand-blasted, soaked, covered in gastric juices, etc.; it's unpleasant, and if nothing else it's a distraction from the actual performance. The spinning and spraying did look nice enough, and the tornado was impressive, though having Morpha obscured by it and then suddenly appear at the top was a bit dull. It would've been more interesting had the tornado carried it up organically, I think, instead of it just shooting up unseen through the center.
Ultraviolet and Karma
The lighting conditions were similar to the last appeal; however, the spotlights focused on the right end of the stage. Once again, a Pokéball was thrown into the lit area. The contestant this time was a green, bipedal reptile with a red stripe across her belly and yellow stripes outlining her spiky head.
Eyes closed and chanting, the Kecleon sharply pressed her temples with her claws. With the exception of the stripe on her abdomen, her body flickered in and out of visibility.
Eventually, while still audibly muttering, she leapt across the hall, with one wild swing of her claw tearing a hole upon reality itself in the middle of the jump. As the chameleon gracefully landed at the left side of the stage, the audience's utter amazement with that last move was audible.
Then, Karma placed her hands by her hips, forming an orb of fighting-type energy. With a loud roar, she raised the wave of power above her head, then tossed it into the spacial hole, quickly moving off-stage afterwards. The blast was easily destroyed by the void.
After a while, the rip sealed itself up, leaving a hole on the ground behind. The cleaning staff had their palms on their faces within three appeals -- the destructive level of the contest was satisfactory.
Metallica Fanboy: 8.0
Your appeal had a sticking point in that Focus Blast could have seen better use, as throwing it into the Spacial Rend only had it get swallowed up and torn apart like it's a weak move. Still, legendary signature moves rarely fail to make a good impression.
Meowth: 8.3
Well obviously anything involving legendary signature moves is going to be awesome you lucky thing you ._. Really not a lot to say about this appeal, but not necessarily in a good way. It was mostly just about using flashy moves and making explosions.
Kratos Aurion: 9.0
Nice. Gotta love legendary moves and wanton destruction. Part of me wonders whether there was just a bit more that could've been done with the acupressure, but at least keeping the chanting up throughout helped; not really sure you could've done much with the only other option you had available anyway.
Blastoise and Koutus
The following appeal was performed under normal lighting conditions -- a relief for those in the audience with poor night vision. Blastoise unceremoniously sent out a canine Pokémon with an imposing stance and a serious glare. She turned her gaze to the audience, then began to scratch her nozzle as if thinking hard.
At some point, she seemed to come up with a good idea. With what sounded akin to evil laughter, she disappeared with a swing of her paw, visibly impressing the audience.
After a few seconds, something had the judges dumbfounded. All three of them were sure they were hearing something -- something that sounded like snarling. Menacing, feral snarling.
Suddenly, Koutus reappered right in front of them. barking aggresively at the head judge, teeth bare.
As Blastoise recalled his Pokémon, the audience applauded, while the judges slowly recovered from the sheer suddenness -- and while one of them carefully hid the baseball bat back beneath the desk.
Metallica Fanboy: 8.2
You certainly made the most of what you were handed out. It's certainly not easy to build a menacing appeal well on stuff like Faint Attack and Growl. You get a good grade, but, nonetheless, you will taste the fury of the baseball bat for scaring the hell out of me.
Meowth: 8.7
...baseballbat? No, that was just my umbrella. Anyway, good job making your actions flow together so well. Now just keep that thing away from me.
Kratos Aurion: 8.2
This went off very nicely considering that you didn't end up with anything legendary or flashy—you made the best of what you had, and while it was a little on the simple side it was very effective. Well done. (Though I can't help but think that this one might actually have been enhanced just a little by lower lighting, hmm.)
demonickittens and Night Angel
The lights went dim again. The next contestant was a black-furred, sharp-clawed Pokémon with a rather humanoid stance.
The weasel spat up a broad, opaque white cloud of fog, covering up all the stage except for a limited bit of space at the corners.
Concealed beneath the smoke, Night Angel then began letting out horrified, painful screams. It was a fairly creepy sound, but the savviest in the audience could tell that it was deliberate, as there shouldn't be anything but the Sneasel hidden from view.
Suddenly, a fist dashed from within the fog. It was genuninely startling; the viewers closer to it even jumped from their seats. The clawed paw returned to the mist as quickly as it came out, only to pop up elsewhere. This kept going; several punches were thrown out at different points of the front line. Despite the good start, the move started to become stale and repetitious. As did the screams, that were still sounding about by the end of the attack.
The crowd was still once more caught by surprise, though, when multiple small, purple, ethereal balls started to fly about, nearly hitting many people in the seats. At that point, the shock among the spectators had gone so far up, they hardly noticed the screams.
As the smoke petered out and the cleaning crew spread by the mildly damaged walls, Night Angel was recalled, ending the appeal with a fair share of applause.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.3
It works as a thriller, if only something of a repetitive thriller, but still, it lacked some coordination between the moves toward a more defined theme.
Meowth: 6.5
Apart from the whole "ooo scary" theme, the moves seem to have been pieced together a bit haphazardly, and none of them seem to have much to do with one another. Not a bad effort, but I think you could have done more with those moves.
Kratos Aurion: 6.0
The idea was an interesting one, but I don't think it came across very well, I'm afraid. The comet punches seemed like an effort to "rough up" the audience and nothing more, when what I think you were going for was having Night Angel attempt to fight off whatever was scary enough to start her screaming like that. The mist was a nice touch, but generally speaking obscuring the pokémon all but entirely isn't a great idea—it would have been nice, for example, if we could actually see that Night Angel appeared to be terrified by something lurking just out of sight, and it would have better explained the comet punches and tied everything together.
ole_schooler and Donna
The lights were back on again. Some of the spectators were beggining to feel as though they were going to need some frigging Transitions Lenses in order to keep watching the appeals.
The reddish-orange furred sendout took a second to scan her surroundings, somewhat unnerved by the large audience. With a slight shake of her head, she began the onslaught.
Between furious, dark energy coated stomps, the Growlithe let out numerous, fierce barks. At a point or two it seemed as though there was something she was trying to say that wasn't very well about to go through, but, at the very least, the idea of anger was clear.
Eventually, she took a few steps back, ran a short distance and leapt straight upwards, her claw raised as though to punch something. Donna then proceeded to backflip, making her cream-colored, bushy mane hang out downards. She darted toward the ground dauntlessly.
Unfortunately, the floor was a tad sturdier than she expected -- it had to take on the inevitable Earthquakes somehow -- but the part about bloodying her muzzle was sucessful. It was hardly pleasant, but she managed to work up the energy to sneer a bit before being returned.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.8
The appeal does send a message and all, but the crash landing without the floor breaking looked more like a fail video than something hardcore.
Meowth: 9.2
Again, nice work making the moves mesh together and adding a sort of buildup, like Koutos' but with less bark and more bite. Good performance!
Kratos Aurion: 6.8
Donna definitely came across as tough and angry. The question here is, angry about what? I realize you only had limited options here, and you got the mood down, but without an actual source of annoyance it seemed more as though she were more crazy than fed up, and not quite managing to damage the floor gave the impression that she's trying to hurt herself. Still, I did like what you were going for. Angry or crazy, I wouldn't mess with her.
Big Red Cherry Bomb and Pankaja
The lights went dim again -- causing one viewer to throw an angry, disrespectful tirade as they left -- with the lights farthest back left on. The head judge took a brief amount of time to explain that the following Pokémon would be of a species not all spectators would be familiar with and that in no way is anybody being deliberately allowed to enter modified Pokémon without supressing and/or disusing said modifications.
Some of the spectators were sure that it was going to be one of the Asber native species they knew about, like a Spraylet or one of these super popular Dragomelet kids keep talking about, but, they turned out to be wrong. Only the most up-to-date among the audience recognized the patterned, brown-furred creature that showed up instead.*
Eyes closed, the recently discovered species lowered his large tail and small head with comparatively enormous ears, carefully tucking his paws beneath himself.
He then raised both tail and head, tearing open yet another mystical hole. This time, it was a black hole, seemingly endless. A fine mist was hanging out by the ground; the spectators were far too taken by the Dark Void to notice that it was in fact being released by Pankaja.
Afterwards, looking at the roof and twitching his ears, the Hennic began to chant audibly. Suddenly, a hole -- a more physical sort of hole, this time -- was blown upon said roof. Viewers' jaws dropped to the floor as they witnessed none other than Arceus float right in.
"Darkrai, I deem thee unworthy." The legendary being announced before its wheel-like structure shone, letting out numerous blasts of light into the gate to the dark world, closing it up.
As the creator Pokémon unceremoniously flew back out, the audience stared wide-eyed at Big Red Cherry Bomb's Pokémon, who likewise stared back at them.
The cleaning crew grunted about patching the gap in the ceiling as security scorted out a robed man who kept on shouting about the messiah having returned or something to that effect.
*by the way, I wrote this appeal a long time ago so, yeah, I know Hennic aren't [t]that[/i] new anymore
Metallica Fanboy: 10.0
You were dealt an amazing hand and you made the most of it. Even the Pokémon choice was an intelligent stroke. It's pretty much what people have in mind when they picture a 10-scoring appeal, I'd guess.
Meowth: 9.5
Two legendary moves in one appeal? I call shenanigans. It seems unfair to mark you up for both of them just because of your incredible luck, but fortunately you did quite a bit with them as well. It's good that you told Pankaja not just what moves to use but how to act while using them, and the fact that you made the two legendary moves interact rather than just firing them off independently and hoping to get off on their showiness alone is a definite plus
Kratos Aurion: 8.5
I'm not sure whether you wanted the two legendary attacks to be interpreted as coming from two separate sources or as being generated by Pankaja; personally I think the latter would have been a bit more impressive, as it's really Pankaja who's on display here, and as it stands it looks like he just kind of sat there and let everything happen around him. Managing to call down Arceus itself is impressive, though, and it made for a nice little storyline. Very cool.
moon-panther and Kammu
The lights were dimmed further. The constant changes in lighting were beggining to make spectators distrust what they just saw and think that, in fact, no Arceus exists.
The wallowing would have to wait for a tad later, though, as there were still plenty appeals to be made. One of them was just about to begin, with a yellow, distinctively humanoid Pokémon taking the stage. He sat around pitifully, as though lifeless; like a puppet.
All of a sudden, he jerked his head upward and shot a bright red beam of light, dazzling and distracting the audience for a very short time. When they looked at the stage again, what they saw was a yellow blur in circular motion. It proceeded to settle down, revealing itself as a perfect circle of Abras.
Then, the multiple Pokémon silently moved away from the ground, floating in a most peculiar way. They initiated a slow circular movement. Most of the crowd expected them to start gaining speed, but, they sustained the eerily lacking speed.
Eventually, they halted, and proceeded to quickly lose size, while moving closer to one another. They arranged themselves in order to, layer by layer, form a structure akin to a pyramid.
It took the spectators a little bit of time to realize the appeal was over and they were supposed to give applause.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.5
Foresight for distraction while booting up Double Team wasn't that effective an idea, and I find that the jump from circle to mini-pyramid was a tad sudden, but still, I like how this appeal made itself an exception of how circular motions always seem to accelerate.
Meowth: 7.9
I quite like this appeal; it seems to compliment Abra's mystical nature pretty well. Not sure what to say about it other than that.
Kratos Aurion: 6.8
The attempt at causing the clones to appear suddenly, and the general impression of things happening automatically as opposed to through conscious effort and action, was a cool idea; I'm just not sure that minimizing and stacking into a pyramid was quite the right way to close it off, and the foresight, while serving its purpose, felt slightly disconnected. The slow, deliberate movements were creepy, but the finish should probably have been a bit more impressive to keep the entire thing from dragging, I think.
Skylark and Static
When the lights went down even further than before, turning the hall very close to pitch dark, the audience was slowly coming to grips with the fact that would have to just deal with the fickle lighting.
An odd feeling kicked in. It was almost as if there was something around them that the darkness refused to let them see.
Suddenly, a wave swept most of the seats. The angling from the stage made it impossible to hit all of them with a single pulse, but most people were. The attack caused not only mild amounts of damage (as the true strenght of the move was heavily supressed), but also caused some sort of paranoia. People felt afraid and hopeless, but had no idea why. Some shielding their heads, thinking that the foreboding indicated that they were about to get hit with a massive blow from a psycho contest participant.
Instead, what came from the stage was a round light. At first it was weak, hardly visible in the darkness. It steadily became brighter, revealing the form of the appealing Pokémon and overall improving visibility in the hall. Then, the creature with the beacon tail seemed to be gathering energies. He proceeded to shoot a luminous green ball at the ceiling, dispelling much of the darkness and turning the lighting conditions dim at worst.
No applause came in -- the crowd was mostly still very shaken by the appeal.
Metallica Fanboy: 9.0
A remarkably creative use of the moves you were dealt. You've managed to establish a strong feel and an engaging appeal even when it didn't seem like the ammunation pointed toward this sort of performance. This appeal sure deserves a hefty grade.
Meowth: 9.5
This is another example of how appeals should be done; using the moves available to tell some sort of a story. Sparkly dancing and blowing shit up are both very nice but this is a very refreshing approach. Nice work playing on the audience's emotions as well.
Kratos Aurion: 7.5
Not bad at all, considering what you had to work with and that this was a first appeal. As I've said before, entirely obscuring the appealing pokémon tends to be a little confusing, though I think you did take better advantage of it than most. Not being able to see the haze at all made the first part of the appeal feel more like dead air than like something that actually added to the effect.
Psymon and Cragon
The stage was lit lightly, left in dim conditions. None was surprised by yet one more change in lighting. What did come as a surprise, though, was that, for the second time, it was announced that the next contestant was a species that not all viewers may be familiar with.
From the left side of the stage, beneath the curtains, a thick cloud of noxious gas rolled in, bombarding the front lines with a horrible smell. While the first few spectators retched violently, one nigh-invisible Pokémon made its subtle path toward the center.
The cloud of poison started to peter out, revealing a round shape. It turned out to be just what some of the audience expected to see earlier: a rock with the format of an egg, large hole punched on the surface, with a small, orange reptile peeking outside.
The pollution completely gave way as he closed his eyes and began muttering inaudibly. Most of the spectators were already savvy on the fact that it meant mystical whooping was about to reach their seats; who knows, maybe there would be more legendaries plowing holes through the roof.
As the vollume of the chanting became louder, Cragon began moving. Starting with a few twitches of his shell, slowly progressing through leans and rolls. Eventually, he was violently pounding and bouncing and thrashing as the sounds he produced were very clear.
Just before he reached the point of shouting, he rolled to the middle of the stage. He leapt, somehow; his enitre body, shell included, were white with heat. As he approached the ground, he roared, unleashing a massive spray of intense flames.
As the applause rolled in, firemen moved in quickly in order to stop the fires set by the Overheat, as well as tending to anybody that might have been damaged just for being near the attack.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.5
Smog failed to establish a good link with the remainder of the appeal -- you could have used it after the Overheat to pass of as smoke or something. Regardless, the combination of Dragon Dance and Overheat was fine enough for a decent grade.
Meowth: 7.5
I'm not really sure what the Smog was for, to be honest. Granted you only have four completely random moves at your disposal, but surely something better could have been done with that Shadow Claw?
Again, shouting and shooting fire are great, but it helps to be relevant. Nothing inherently wrong with the appeal, though, so it gets a 7.5 from me.
Kratos Aurion: 7.0
I understand the effect you were going for, but you do need to be careful with attacks that can potentially hit the audience—being grossed out or made sick by a foul stench is distracting, if nothing else. Furthermore, the smog didn't quite flow into the dragon dance and overheat as cleanly as you were hoping it would, though the latter two attacks were impressive. Personally I would have gone with shadow claw over smog and tried to work some wild slashing into the dragon dance's buildup; definitely serviceable as-is, though.
Walker and The Mountain Called Monkey
The crowd expected the lights to fade away once more, or become brighter. For once in a long time, though, they were surprised; the ligths were rearranged so as to focus on a few, seemingly random spots rather than just stay keeping all the hall dark or illuminated.
A small animal with thick, mostly brownish white fur took the stage. It took a moment to breathe in and remind himself that the following insane stunt was powered by the forces of Metronome. He somehow managed to spit three jagged chunks of ice up, catching two with his hands and hanging one above his head.
The primate Pokémon proceeded to flick his left-handed Ice Shard upward, giving him time to unload the one on his head. He threw that one up as well, and then passed the right-handed shard over to his left hand, again tossing it up. While airborne, the shards would ocasionally reach patches of concentrated light, which would temporarily give them a glossy aspect.
By then, he had started juggling with the freeze blocks. The lack of coordination and skills innate to his species stopped him from keeping the movements neat; however, somehow, the unsteady equilibrium sustained itself, despite occasional threats to crumble.
At one point, The Mountain Called Monkey retrieved the chunks, indicating the end of the appeal. He thought to throw one of them for the audience to grab, but was stopped by his trainer, who knew that it would end up with a bump on a viewer's forehead and, by extension, lower scores.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.9
Relying on only one move was an amazing way to weasel out of not particularly having any good combinations. The singleness of the action does make for a comparatively tedious appeal, but, it's still worth a good grade.
Meowth: 8.8
Even if I wanted to I don't think I could downvote a juggling monkey. In fact it was quite a creative use of an Ice Shard, and I'm impressed that you pulled off an entire appeal with only one of your moves. Nice to see something that doesn't use complete darkness for a change, too!
Kratos Aurion: 7.4
I like simple appeals like this one. It was a hair underwhelming considering the attempts at crazy action everyone else is trying all around you, but you were dealt what you were dealt and it was a neat little trick. I liked it.
sreservoir and OH DEAR
The lights rearranged again, this time focusing on a single point at the hall's high ceiling. This arrangement cast a peculiar shadow on the audience.
Perfectly beneath the intersection of lights, an odd Pokémon was sent out -- two purple semicircles jointed by a yellow stem, the lower one having four roots and the upper one decorated with peculiar yellow patterns, pink tentacles hanging from the top.
From the top of her "head", the ancient Pokémon spouted three aquatic rings, that promptly floated down to surround her body. With a flattening motion, she forced the rings together, taking the appearance of a single, tall barrel.
Still in that position, OH DEAR started to gather heat until she obtained a white tint. Then, she unleashed a maelstrom of flames, making the water start steaming. Eventually, it completely turned into a cloud of vapor.
However, when the steam had given way enough for the Lileep to visible again, somehow, the Aqua Ring was still there. It surprised and even confused the crowd to some extent.
Metallica Fanboy: 7.1
Using Overheat and Aqua Ring for an appeal based around vaporization formed a nice trick. As a whole, though, I've used up most of my stock appeal comment words by now, so, I suppose I'll just shut up and slide a nice grade in.
Meowth: 8.9
Another thing I can't bring myself to dislike is prehistoric anemone things doing magic tricks. Another creative use of moves, nice work.
Kratos Aurion: 7.8
Another one that is relatively simple by comparison, but not bad at all, and definitely impressive simply for working the way it was intended to. Why the first aqua ring needed to disappear in a cloud of steam is a bit beyond me, and the sudden burst of actual fire gave it more of a disconnect than I think you were anticipating, but it did look nice.
L'il Dwagie and Ben
Unsurprisingly, the lighting changed. The normal spotlights were all turned off, giving way to multiple colored lights.
A large, yellow bug Pokémon flew in from the left side of the stage, steady airborne gait and smug posture clearly indicating pride.
After a while of just standing there and putting on the swagger, the Ben released numerous of the undergrown Combees that were inhabiting her abdomen. She immediatly followed it up by firing numerous splinters on the ground, which out gradually leak poison all over it, while slinging more toxins by swinging them out of her abdomen. Her servants, too, dropped droplets of poison where they went, forming a curtain of sorts. The colored lights all had plenty of different effects on the overall appearance of the scene.
At one point, the Vespiquen flew closer to the ground, let her arms down and started focusing. Then, with one large jerk upwards, an enormous tree burts through the floor, with several other, smaller forms of plantlife following up as well. Poison and splinters that were scattered on the stage now were splattered at the audience, requiring some immediate movement from the paramedics.
Poison was still being gushed all over the stage; the difference is that it was landing on the plants rather than on the floor. As the main tree rose ever higher, Ben followed its movements closely, flying along with it while still letting the toxins drip. When the tree reached its pinnacle, the queen bee Pokémon sat upon its top, careful not to touch any venom, and started to appeal to the crowd, receiving applause from the ones that still could breathe.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.0
Mass poisoning is a very unfortunate side effect, but, using the Frenzy Plant as a pseudo-throne was a great move, and thus, again, at least a six is guaranteed.
Meowth: 8.2
Mass poisoning aside, not a bad appeal. I especially like the way you used Frenzy Plant there.
Kratos Aurion: 7.0
The lights playing off of the poison looked nice, if potentially dangerous, and the frenzy plant was impressive, but, eh, I don't really buy that it had much of anything to do with the first part of the display. Perhaps if you'd had Ben pay a bit more attention to the preparation of the frenzy plant from the start, you might've been able to give the impression that she and her bees were sprinkling magic water or something that would cause a throne-tree-thing to grow, and that would've tied it in a little better.
blazheirio889 and Kohryuu
The colored lights gave way; the normal spotlights returned. That is, only one of them did, illuminating a large radius at the stage and leaving the crowd in a bit of darkness.
Right into that lit area, a Pokémon was sent out. It was a golden, coiled-up snake that appeared to be asleep.
Seizing the opportunity to this right after a child produced a loud noise from the crowd seats, the metallic Pokémon suddenly jerked his head up and opened his eyes, as though snapped awake. It gave the spectators a furious glare, with a few snarls.
After checking for plenty of wide-eyed stares, the Steelix uncoiled itself and, with a roar, aimed at the ceiling, spitting up numerous odd, spherical objects. The angle of the spit was adjusted so that they would start falling just short of reaching the roof, and would not fall straight down, but rather forwards.
When Kohryuu lowered his head back to normal position, it was to glare at crowd again and let out one more roar, pouding at the ground with his tail as flames spouted from his skin. Soon thereafter, the round objects fired upwards earlier were within range of the furious flailing, and each one was blasted on the spot. Because, after all the irritating shifts in lighting, the crowd really needed their money's worth in explosions.
Metallica Fanboy: 7.8
Explosions. Just... Explosions.
... The being woken up thing was a nice touch, too.
Meowth: 8.2
I would go off on a rant about how roaring and explosions have been done a million times before, but what else are Steelix good for, really? Not bad overall.
Kratos Aurion: 8.2
As with ole_schooler's appeal above, I personally am probably not quite as impressed with baseless anger as I should be (though, again, I understand the limitations here, and at least the little kid who piped up did help a little). All that said, explosions. And smashing things. And also explosions. It was pulled off well, even if my personal appeal tastes don't quite line up with the reasoning for it.
Byrus and Zoltan
With the last appeal over, the audience expected yet one more change in lighting. Yet, none came along. When the sendout was made without changes to the hall's state, that alone was enough to warrant heartfelt applause.
The sendout, a small bird of mostly black feathers, seemed distressed. She kept on looking behind, with a frightened stare. She even seemed to be trembling a little bit.
She proceeded to drop to the ground and batter at the air with her wings, letting out short, desperate chirps. The struggle against nothing got progressively wilder and more agitated, until the point when the Starly leapt off the ground, delivering two sharp airborne wing slaps to thin air, with almost intimidating chirps following each one.
Then, with one long cry, it shot straight upwards, leaving a red blur along its path. It followed along by landing gracefully beneath the spotlight, carefully watching the crowd.
Metallica Fanboy: 6.7
The lack of a threatening something was almost compensated by the good means of expressing its supposed existance. It's harder to make something sound scary when it's really not there, but, it was a good try, worthy of a good grade.
Meowth: 7.8
Again nice job on the theme and weaving your appeal into a story, but I can't imagine a Starly fighting against thin air as looking anything other than ridiculous. Great appeal, but maybe just enacted awkwardly.
Kratos Aurion: 7.5
Pretty startling for a starly (ouch), I will admit, and her performance went well. As with the above, however, I just feel like it was kind of baseless and out of nowhere, and without a proper sense of what Zoltan was trying to escape from it was a little hard to understand. Perhaps if you'd gotten yourself involved in the appeal, even just to wave your arms around a little and pretend to be a wizard that's magically restraining her or something, I don't know, then it would have been a bit more solid.
Squornshellous Beta and Ni Wá Wa
The spotlight turned off and the lights went dim again. At the very least, the changes to lighting would end soon, as the last appeal was about to take place.
A sendout appeared in the very middle of the stage. Its brown body seemed to be letting out a few sparks. It stood still for a while, but as the sparks intensified, it seemed progressively distressed, until it looked as though it could barely contain something.
Then, all of a sudden, as the last one spark flies off, it explodes. The viewers applaud immediatley (they just love explosions) as the charred Baltoy is recalled and the maintance crew rushes to patch yet one more hole on the stage.
Metallica Fanboy: 8.0
More explosions: a surefire way to net a neat grade. The sparks built it up in a way that put it above the average explosion, as well.
Meowth: 7.3
Again, explosions have been done, but what else can Baltoys do :v At least you built in some build-up as well, but there still wasn't a lot to this besides "go onstage, sparkle, blow up"
Kratos Aurion: 8.9
Simple—almost a bit too simple—but it worked. There isn't much more to say about it. Well done.
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Big Red Cherry Bomb: 28.0
Skylark: 26.0
Ultraviolet: 25.3
Blastoise: 25.1
blazheirio889: 24.2
Squornshellous Beta: 24.2
sreservoir: 23.8
Walker: 23.1
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ole_schooler: 22.8
Byrus: 22.0
moon-panther: 21.2
L'il Dwagie: 21.2
Psymon: 21.0
Jack_The_PumpkinKing: 20.6
demonickittens: 18.8
Mawile: 17.8
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Congratulations, Big Red Cherry Bomb, Skylark, Ultraviolet, Blastoise, blazheirio889, Squornshellous Beta, sreservoir and Walker! Whether it was by good fortune or pure skill, you have advanced to the next round.
You may spend some time to be surprised over the fact this exists before I'm done with the next randomizations.
